


Aged in My Wistfulness

by scrawlingcomet



Series: Weathered Shields [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol, Anal Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 14:44:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10721400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrawlingcomet/pseuds/scrawlingcomet
Summary: For Cor it starts with a dream, and unravels into something more.





	Aged in My Wistfulness

It’s a strange dream, one that walks with him into the waking world. Fog heavy at the back of Cor’s mind and blurry in the corners of his eyes. It…something…someone echoes far away. This dream started when the darkness swarmed in. He should be focused on fighting those inky shadows, fight the daemons that lurch out and crush them into ash, focus on the day when the Sun finally rises again, but red eyes catch the corners of his vision.

 

When he sleeps, when the taste of copper doesn’t fill his mouth, when dirt and gravel don’t crunch under his feet, when consciousness is furthest from him, his dream swallows him. A humanoid maelstrom of black and purple and a phantom arm of fire manifested by sheer will greet him. And, red glowing eyes, filling the hollows of a silver mask.

 

Red eyes.

 

 _Those red eyes._ Watching him. Calling him. Cor knows those eyes, he knows who they belong to, but when the name begins to form, the fog returns. Blaringly white surrounding him, halting the world to stillness, and then the dream becomes too distant and he wakes. The dream recedes to the back of his mind again, always there, something, someone.

 

The static chirps of his radio pull him upward, and for a brief moment he doesn’t see anything chase his line of sight.

 

______

 

Iris, Cor’s proud of her. Like any Amicitia she takes to protecting others like breathing. Swings a broadsword with ease and carves her mark out on the battlefield. Knowing she’s a hunter too, well the world seems just a little less dim. She’s even better at gathering info than Gladiolus, just as sharp as Ignis, and as bubbly and easygoing as Prompto. She learned from her predecessors well.

 

They still hunt, the three of them, but he can see it in them, the same thing in him, but he’s weathered it more than once, and he’s long accepted that his duty is now to the people. Duty, they’ve lost their sense of it, just under the surface, he knows they feel aimless and as if they failed. It’s hard not to feel that way when shadows are alive and well and it’s a constant battle to beat them back.

 

“Enough.” Cor commands one night, one of the rare nights he’s paired up with the trio. He cuts through the final goblin, minor foes, but they always swarm in large numbers, and tonight the three fought as if it were their first time fighting. Clumsy, unfocussed, and stumbling with new gashes that could’ve easily been avoided, enough.

 

Cor turned on them, they knew, he could tell. Gladiolus and Prompto avoid his gaze, Ignis’ face is tight, Cor could see him thinking, critiquing himself. Three years into a full-blown Starscourge, but in many ways they are still young.

 

“Your king gave you your orders, protect the people. Fight the darkness. You were trained for that. You wear the Lucian black.” It should be easier for them, right? The prophecy should give hope. Their king will come back. This will pass.

 

“King Noctis needs a world to save, make sure it’s here when he returns.” He turns to walk back to camp, but the sound of fabric shuffling and dirt crunching stops him.

“Marshal!” Affirmatively they say. He doesn’t look back only beckons them forward with his hand and continues onward to haven.

 

______

 

At camp they finish a meal Cor didn’t realize could be made with so few ingredients, but Ignis is a master of his craft. Were there vegetables he wonders scraping the last bit of rice from his plate. It felt like it, but maybe he was imagining things.

 

Imagining, much like he now convinced himself those red eyes were just his mind creating things when he had little else to focus on.

_‘Focus.’_ He told himself, his gaze trying to shake the red one that followed his. His eyes settled on his old sword leant up against Gladio’s chair. The Genji Blade long and slender, ornate, speaking to what a cocky reckless youth he once was. But maybe youthful arrogance wasn’t such a bad thing. In desperation and stubbornness, the ghosts of the fallen around him, he struck a decisive blow and was spared his life, given a title that was bigger than he was, bigger than he ever felt he could be.

 

Cor did not want for it, but it’s saying something to him. A quiet cluster of purple and black will-o-wisps form and pull him into a trance. The world around him tunnels to focus on that cluster. It’s making a request? He thinks so. He feels a question on his tongue, he wants it to be clearer, but the sword slips from view and the trance is broken. He blinks the ghost fire away till they are just fading spots, barely registering Gladiolus picking up the sword wishing him goodnight.

 

He catches himself, insisting he’s fine to take the first watch and that he’ll finish the cleaning. He’ll be just fine.

 

______

 

_Cor dreams again, and for the first time silver hair hangs above him, brushing his face. Unraveled from their bindings, curtaining him, a glowing halo framing those red eyes. And just barely there, in the center, a white-hot center where a pupil should be, burning away with something, something beyond the magic he understood._

_Cold metal touches against his nose and blooms from the tip upward, unfurling around those eyes that stare at him, unblinking. He forces himself not to look away, and stares right back. The mask crawls itself into place, something of a face, and it presses closer._

_Though the mask is full and leaves no room for a mouth to be seen, he feels one, just above his, not quite touching._

_A voice rings in his ear._

 

_‘Seek out Taelpar Crag, the ruins, return to the Tempering Grounds.’_

He starts awake, but stays stone still in his bed. Breath shuddering out of him he stares up at his ceiling, and thankfully, doesn’t see anything in the old and warping wood. Slowly, he looks around him, and again, nothing.

 

Exhaling he closes his eyes but opens them immediately, feeling cold metal press against his nose again. He doesn’t feel fear, but the dream finally seems to be more than an echo of his mind.

 

______

 

It took another year to get here. To cut down what stood in his way. Stood in the way of the echo at the back of his mind, the echo loudest in his sleep, the echo that called him here to the ruins. Surprisingly, but maybe it shouldn’t be, the darkness struggles to encroach on the path of the ruins. Only the sky above pitched into eternal night tells that the world has changed. The Tempering Grounds inside Taelpar Crag looks much the same as the last time, and the time before that. Too stubborn to yield to time.

 

Must he open the trial again? No. He was called here.

 

Nothing greets him at the entrance. In the cavern no beast stirs, not a soul rises to goad him. Trial chambers are empty, and stone gates melt ands shift away without prompting. Only torches, burning of their own accord light his way. In the open air wooden bridges jammed into the mountain side alternate with stone ledges inclining up and up and up.

 

All around him jagged arches of crystal and stone grow out of the rock, as if he’s in in the ribcage of some old decayed behemoth, and maybe he is.

 

The wooden bridges creak under his feat, but they always do. He remembers the first time, the very first time, in his haste how some gave way under him. Running back down the mountain with his life, afraid to look back lest the General change his mind, somewhere, somewhere now where he steps, he almost fell through, broken wood nearly gutting him. There must be something to the title he was given, Cor the Immortal, maybe there’s some truth in it. Death must have gripped him over a dozen times now, and each time he’s shaken free of its hold.

 

Does he walk to his death now? He isn’t sure. He does not feel that chill in his bones, when death is almost certain and his body is close to failing him. He does not hear his pulse in his ears when his instincts tell him to stay sharp and run if defeat is evident. Cor’s feet just move him forward guided by the echo in his mind.

______

 

In the innermost sanctum the blue crystal rods that make up the final gate disintegrate open. Before him on the rocky bridge, with swords stabbed into the ground acting as headstones for improper graves, just as the first time, and as when Gladio faced him, stands the Blademaster.

 

The Blademaster meets Cor as he walks along the bridge. He seems endlessly tall. Cor barely comes up to his chest, and he’s really not used to this kind of view. Is he metal assembled into the form of a man? A pair of red eyes behind a silver mask welded into something like a face, if a face could be so sharpened and polished. Silver hair falls out of the hood of his cape secured at the end with red hair ties.

 

He’s approached Cor without a sword drawn, but by nature, by training, Cor grips his own sword.

 

The Blademaster inclines his head, his eyes scanning over Cor, settling on the hand around his sword.

 

“There is no need for that. You have not challenged me, I mean no harm.” He raises his right metal-gloved hand open palmed, and then encourages Cor to follow him across the bridge. “You took quite some time to return here.” His accent holds a proper tilt stuck in an age long past.

 

Cor hesitates for a moment and takes a small step forward. “Blademaster, ha-”

 

“Gilgamesh.” He corrects not halting his steps expecting Cor to follow him. “And what is it the title they have given you?”

 

Cor licks his lips, it feels strange to say out of his own mouth, to shape his tongue and lips to fit a title that means more to others than to himself. “Cor the Immortal.” He quickens his step trying to keep up.

 

“I take it then, that it is just Cor?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Gilgamesh,” He pauses again, that also feels strange to form his mouth around. “, have you been calling for me?”

 

They come to a stop reaching the other end of the bridge, at the mouth of another cave. Gilgamesh inclines his head again, looking thoughtful, making sure he holds Cor’s gaze. “I do believe it to be the other way around.”

 

Cor breaks away. “But my dreams …”

 

Gilgamesh watches Cor’s face, watches the confusion bubble up on his brow and boil over into a deeper frown. “They were you calling out to me. However, I do admit at times I wondered what sort of man you became. You, the first to wound me since I became what I am, what did that moment turn your into? I long wondered if you were still alive, if you survived the years or if you fell to a lesser creature.”

 

That doesn’t help Cor much, but he looks to Gilgamesh. He came here for answers and he must have them. “But why would I? I could barely remember you from years ago. And now as you stand, you only seem familiar because of my dreams, but before …”

 

Gilgamesh only hums in response and enters the cave and Cor follows. It’s barren. Cor didn’t expect a palace, but it hardly looks lived in. A fire pit, and more swords plunged into the earth. He sits at the fire pit and motions for Cor to sit opposite of him, the pit ignites on its own.

 

Even sitting down with his back erect and legs folded, hand on his knee, Gilgamesh still towers over Cor.

 

It takes a moment, but Gilgamesh decides to speak first. “You last came with the Shield of the True King.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And I gave him my trophy. The sword you used to take from me my arm all those years ago.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“He came here not fully understanding himself. Not understanding what it was he needed to be for his king. Afraid to be afraid and to recognize his faults.”

 

Cor doesn’t respond.

 

“Many have come here seeking to prove themselves. Many think it their physical prowess they need to test. Few ever reach the point of introspection and realize what it is they truly seek.”

 

He watches Cor over the fire for just a moment seeing what thoughts flash across his face.

 

“I believe you are among to few to reach introspection, but, at this moment, I believe you are lost.”

 

“And that’s why I’ve been having dreams of you and seeing you when I wake? For years now?” Cor sees it, just slightly, a smile touches Gilgamesh’s eyes under the mask and he hears a small breathy laugh.

 

“In a strange way, we are like old friends, you and I. Eos in its eternal night, and the Astrals above have left both of us very little in the way of companionship. You perhaps seek this from me. In some ways we are the same, old shields of dead kings. There are versions of us carried in whispers like legends. Perhaps that is familiar to you.”

 

Cor’s jaw is tense and his arms cross tightly over his chest. He frowns at the fire his pale eyes look at something unseen searching frantically. Finally he exhales, thoughts seeming to have come to head.

 

“And what is it you seek, Gilgamesh?” Cor looks up at him, frustration clear as day.

 

“I do not seek beyond what I am.”

 

Another sigh, coarse and deep from within Cor’s chest. “So you just wait here in the ruins for challengers? Have you seen what the Starscourge is turning people into?” He grounds out frustration getting the better of him.

 

“I thought you a much calmer man.” Gilgamesh muses scanning over Cor once more.“You misunderstand the purpose I have designed for myself. The darkness only grazes these ruins because I do not allow it passage, yet still I can only do so much. Despite my power, I am but one man.”

 

An apology worms around in Cor’s gut, but he can only bow his head.

 

He stays for a long time, how long he does not know, the fire never shrinks, it is constant, and as usual the sky never brightens. Gilgamesh is patient, and does not rush his thoughts, but maybe right now this is beyond him. He finally rises, bows properly in thanks.

 

“Thank you, Gilgamesh. I will, consider what it is I seek.” For now he must return to hunting, to protecting people.

 

Gilgamesh only nods in response, and watches Cor as he leaves.

 

______

Cor’s dreams never stop, but they now hold strange clarity. At times he feels like he sits before Gilgamesh as he did only a few weeks ago, like he’s holding a silent discussion with him, and each time, he feels a little less confused. When he walks the world awake, his dream does not follow, he does not have to find distractions, but sometimes he distracts himself with the memory of his dreams and tries to put it into words.

 

Words fail him, and so he returns to the Tempered Grounds. Again and again, until the time between each visit shrinks. Till a pattern forms and it’s for three days in the third week of each month that he goes and seeks out Gilgamesh.

 

“Still you do not know?” Gilgamesh asks every now and then. It seems he is closer to the answer, but he does not explain to Cor. “I cannot make you understand yourself, Immortal.”

 

Regardless the Blademaster humors him, welcoming him to sit by the fire. Letting Cor speak when he feels like it, he himself regaling Cor with tales of old. He can’t say he finds it tiresome, with the way the world is, he admits he relishes it. At times, Cor pulls a laugh out of him.

______

 

Once, at the entrance of the ruins, Cor witnesses Gilgamesh swing one strike and at least ten daemons turn to ash. Another swing, more ash, and some darkness recedes, but it’s persistent, it doesn’t dare spit out more daemons, but it pools back into the space he cut out.

 

______

 

Another year passes and this time Cor brings a bottle of whiskey. Expensive whiskey but the glass is scuffed and scratched, and it’s amazing it didn’t leak out or totally shatter.

 

“You do drink, right?” Cor smiles, and holds up the bottle when Gilgamesh greets him.

 

Gilgamesh feigns shock. “Am I not a man?”

 

Cor chuckles out his words. “I suppose so.” He brought a pair of glasses, the only pair, left from his collection. They sit and he pours for them both.

 

It occurs to him, when Gilgamesh halts their toast it will be the first time he’ll see his actual face.

 

Gilgamesh fiddles with the sides of his mask, something under his hood clicks, and a small whisper of air escapes. He pulls away his mask, lowering it slowly to place it face up in his lap. Pushing away his hood and Cor can see how his armor stops underneath his jaw, obscured by his hair but he’s sure it connects somewhere there.

 

He sucks in a breath when Gilgamesh looks back at him. His skin is a deep umber brown, illuminated by the warmth of the fire. His eyes are still red, but their glow isn’t as intense as when under the mask.

 

Cor must stop himself from gawking, if he weren’t already, and tries again to initiate their toast. Each time he drinks he can’t help but look. Gilgamesh, is striking, his features broad and sharp, thick silver eyebrows, a firm jaw and high cheekbones. His long fair hair and eyelashes soften him to an ethereal quality. The mask exaggerated his features, but his nose is still prominent and just a touch crooked. Cor sips his drink a little too fast, worried by the full lips that sip at a reasonable pace.

 

By the time he’s buzzed enough stop thinking whether or not he’s staring too much Gilgamesh laughs and he sobers right up. Just hearing his laugh is one thing, without the mask it rings earnest and clear, his smile too dazzling. Cor can’t say much more after that, Gilgamesh likes to hold his gaze, and whenever he smiles, well Cor just hopes his face seems red from the drink.

______

 

Cor’s dreams take on a different shape. He dares not distract himself with them when conscious, they stun him. Whenever he wakes, for a moment, he wants to forget his loyal sense of duty and see the smiling face in his dreams.

______

 

Gilgamesh has started removing his mask when they sit down together, at ease, content. Cor’s face is one of the few he can keep in his memory now. Countless warriors have faced him and only few have made their mark. Over two millennia he’s been the Blademaster, most days he feels certain he remembers the face of his king, but some days he feels on the edge of forgetting.

 

He looks at Cor, whose eyes shift to the fire. Pale blue eyes lightened with age. A stern face, weathered from the wind and Sun. A fine and trim beard squares his jaw more. Lines on his brow from his usually dower expression, but lately, he doesn’t frown as much, he doesn’t look as sad as when they first sat together. Right now a shy smile wavers on his lips. Gilgamesh considers him for a moment. Cor is broad in the chest. The loose fit of his fatigues hide some of his build.

 

“Cor.” Gilgamesh says grabbing his attention from the fire.

 

Cor looks back at him, but his brows rise in worry. “Yes?”

 

“Is it not an ordeal for you to make this trek every month?”

 

Cor balls his fists. “If this is you asking me to stop visiting, then I will do that.”

 

“You misunderstand. I enjoy your company.” He sees the confusion bunch up Cor’s face.

 

“What is it that you want, Cor?”

 

Breath shudders out of Cor. “I don’t, I don’t know.” He looks almost apologetic.

 

Gilgamesh himself sighs. “ If you will allow it, I can visit you.”

 

Cor’s eyes snap up sharply. “You want to do that?”

 

Gilgamesh nods. “You have found the companionship you did not realize you sought. However, you seek something else now. Whether or not that comes to pass, I do enjoy spending time with you.”

 

A blush rises high all the way to the tips of Cor’s ears. He nods. A whisper leaves his lips almost lost over the crackle of fire. “Okay.”

 

______

 

Each time Gilgamesh visits it’s brief, or at least shorter than when Cor goes to him.

 

The first time Gilgamesh fulfilled his promise Cor nearly jumped out of his skin. Those purple and black will-o-wisps bubbled into space suddenly and he dwarfed the space of Cor’s room. When he blinked away, just the slightest red outline of his shape remained, and faded away like smoke.

 

Most times when Gilgamesh visits it’s in the shack of an outpost Cor lives in. Sometimes, very few times, he joins him on a hunt, and Cor marvels at how fast they dispatch the daemons.

 

No matter how brief, the visits become frequent, from once a month, to every few weeks, till finally at least once a week. A space is cleared for Gilgamesh to place his mask. A matching pair of rock glasses and decanter occupies the modest wooden table Cor eats his meals at.

 

The first time they kiss, they are sober. Gilgamesh wanted Cor to be sure. Something in Cor is surprised by the warmth of Gilgamesh’s skin, at the same time he thinks he shouldn’t be. Gilgamesh is alive, flesh and blood under metal, he just holds a strange power.

 

Kisses become frequent, countless, but remind Cor that time still passes as he looks forward to each time it will happen.

 

Falling into bed together, the first time is jarring. Over and over again Gilgamesh asks him if he’s sure, because Cor fixates on his cauterized left shoulder. Over and over again he kisses the scarred and twisted flesh as if he can ask for forgiveness this way.

 

“Please. Please, Cor. This is not about that. Look at me, actually look at me.” Gilgamesh is surprised by his own sob but he seizes Cor’s face in his ungloved hand. Cor blinks away the trance he was in and takes Gilgamesh’s hand into his own, kisses the knuckles, another apology.

Cor looks down at the man beneath him. His eyes still glow red, but they do not strike fear or unease in Cor, they draw him in. His silver hair fans out over the sheets, a halo around his head, his face soft and wanting.

 

It should strike Cor the situation he’s in, what he’s doing, how he got to this point, in a small way it does, but he laces their fingers instead and bends down to kiss him.

 

Slicked fingers become less than enough and Gilgamesh wraps a long heavy leg around Cor’s waist. “Please.” He pleas. When last did he feel this? Feel like this? Watery and open, simmering out of himself.

 

Cor does as he asks, fucks him slow. Bites and kisses at his skin. Sucks marks onto his neck and chest.

 

Neither of them are talkers, but Gilgamesh needs Cor to know that this is okay, needs him to know that he wants this.

 

Cor folds him at his waist and throws Gilgamesh’s legs over his shoulders, heavy as he is, Cor does it with ease. Grinds into him deeper, sharper. Gilgamesh’s voice hitches in his throat and he babbles against Cor’s lips. His eyes drift close.

 

“Please, please, please.”

 

He keens feeling Cor grab and stroke his dick. His heels kick at Cor’s back, and his hand squeezes the one holding his. He cums hard and long, everything fizzles to static. He hears and feels Cor cum above him, and Astrals he wishes he'd seen Cor’s face, but his eyes are screwed tight because his body still jumps and trembles, and it’s really been a while.

 

Cor caresses his ribs, kisses softly at his brow till he finally comes down. He laughs to himself feeling a damp washcloth on his stomach. It has been far too long.

 

He can’t stay much longer, but in that time he holds Cor close to him. Whispers sweet things, promises things that flush Cor’s face. Kisses that stern mouth into a small smile, one more time, and then he dresses and leaves.

______

 

Another time, whiskey on his tongue, Gilgamesh makes a point to ride Cor. Silver hair blanketing them, tickling Cor’s skin. Keeps him close as he can with Cor’s hand brushing over his chest, the other hand stroking his dick.

 

Gilgamesh grips what he can of Cor’s short hair, scratching at the scalp with blunt nails. “I need to see, I need to see.” Tumbles from his lips as he presses their foreheads together. He makes Cor look at him, and stare right into his eyes, Cor doesn’t dare look away.

 

He relishes the sight, how Cor’s face twists in pleasure, his eyes trying their damnedest to stay open. A punched out sounds escapes Cor’s mouth and he shudders in Gilgamesh’s hold.

 

A few days later Cor complains about his hips and lower back.

 

“And yet you don’t complain about your knees?”

______

 

Each time they lay together it is glorious. Gilgamesh goes down easy, open, wrapping long limbs around Cor who is eager to give. In the back of Cor’s mind something tries to connect and make sense of how or why, but then he kisses those full lips and gazes into those red eyes, and he forgets. He listens to the heartbeat that **is** there, that is real, that isn’t a dream.

______

 

 

The True King returns and the Sun does finally rise. They did not see it to together the first time, but make sure they watch it the second time on the roof of Cor’s shack. A third time on the bridge where the all the crystals sparkle under the light. Most days they watch it together, and most day Cor feels like he sees Gilgamesh for the first time. Illuminated and radiant in the sunlight, Cor is always struck by him.

 

A decade of eternal night finally gone.

 

______

 

“What will you do, Gilgamesh?” Cor asks one morning while they lay in bed. No urgency of the Starscourge to force them out of bed.

 

“This is not an appropriate way to end your courtship.”

 

“No. I’ve just been thinking. Will people still seek out your trials? What do you become without them?”

 

“Kings and daemons may be be scarce in this land, but I will always be. I am willpower manifested. People will always want to prove themselves. There need not be a war or a daemon curse for one to want to test their strength. You would need the Astrals to take me from this world.”

 

Cor sits up. He’s damn near almost sixty. His time is finite. His job description has tweaked itself yet again, but it’s still dangerous. He may be by Gilgamesh’s side for now, but he doesn’t think he’s that stubborn to manifest power like he has, to live a millennia. He’s outlived three kings, he’s seen the end of a dynasty, lived through an apocalypse, death should surly be catching up.

 

A hand claps down on his back, bringing him from his thoughts.

 

“Do not fret over it so.” Gilgamesh pulls him down too him, and curves his body to fit against him.

 

“Be ever present with me. We have now spent years together, and we will live through more together. Enjoy the time you have been given.”

 

Cor wraps as much of himself as he can over Gilgamesh. He’s right. For once in his life duty is not his priority, all he needs to care about is this person he shares space with.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been changing up my style so this was also a bit of an exercise in that.
> 
> But also I fell right into this ship 'cause I needed some Cor content, and saw little scraps of this ship around.
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I also post fic on a tumblr under the same name https://scrawlingcomet.tumblr.com/


End file.
